For centuries, violence against women has been regarded as normal, private, “just domestic”, dismissed as female exaggeration and blamed on the bruised and abused. It’s even been insidiously romanticised as erotic – a man who wants a woman so much he’ll stalk her and beat her until she capitulates. Every step she takes, every move she makes, etc.
One of the most obvious examples of this is the term “wife-beater”, which has been used as a name for alcoholic beverages (rum made from sugarcane has been known as “the golden wife-beater”, and Stella Artois beer is often called “Wifebeater” in the UK), as monikers by professional wrestlers, and, most often, as a term for a sleeveless shirt. Men who wore “wife-beaters” were traditionally meaty, macho, muscular, often in trouble with the law, and from migrant communities. They looked like Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (although, it has been pointed out, he wasn’t wearing one in the scenes where he raped or struck Stella).
Illustration: Simon LetchCredit: Sydney Morning Herald
Today, Gen Z has been trying to rebrand the shirt as a “wife-pleaser”, with #wifepleasertank racking up millions of views on TikTok, even though you can still buy “wife-beaters” on Amazon, eBay and Etsy. (On The Simpsons, Ned Flanders called his undershirt a “wife-blesser” while Queer Eye star Jonathan Van Ness has used the term a “wife-lover”.)
Even Louis CK – when, presumably, not masturbating in front of female comedians – made a joke about this, saying: “It was so OK to beat your wife until so recently that today we have a kind of shirt named after it.” Hahaha. Seriously, where’s the joke?
So why does this matter?
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Source Agencies
